Did you say "let this series die"? I hate you.

It's hard to call repetitiveness a con of this particular Dynasty Warriors game, since it's a hallmark of the series. As for the clone characters, none of the "main" characters (those with Musou modes) have clones. Obviously the lack of an original story can't be held against it, since it's specifically based on the novel, but okay. If you want an original story for it, then get Warriors Orochi instead. It also has the variants on gameplay that some of you people are looking for. Wikipedia's article can tell you plenty about that, I suspect.

And yeah, the game has Chaos mode, of course, and (like Warriors Orochi) it is much harder as a whole than DW5 and all the games that preceded it. The big issues I have with the game are the lack of Musou modes for all the characters and the somewhat tedious siege tactics. I still absolutely adore it. I was stunned that I managed to lose a level on Normal difficulty; that's innovation enough after DW4-5's level of ease.